Debauchery Worlds 60 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Southmonk

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 60

-VB-

Same day…

Hohiro Kurita

He stared out from his palace as his world came crashing around him. The hordes of honorless and unsophisticated curs came crashing upon Luthien, and he was helpless to do anything about it. 

For twelve hours, he and his people had to endure an unrelenting orbital bombardment while his own naval assets had to be watch helplessly because they were too weak to do anything against the technologically superior enemy’s navy. For twelve hours, they systematically destroyed everything of worth on his homeworld and soften it up for their landing. For twelve hours, he sat in his palace, readying his blade to fight to the end. 

But they didn’t come for him.

No, they stayed away from the palace not out of some respect or cunning… but because they said it was worthless. 

They declared so on their radio proclamations. 

“Hohiro Kurita is an idiot who doesn’t know anything about ruling! Killing him is a waste of a bullet!” the radio screamed on all channels.

It was also a form of communication disruption. With the Coreward dogs blasting that message on every radio frequency and then some, none of his units could use radio at all. While they couldn’t use radio to communicate, the enemies used some other means to do so. 

With radio, the most used form of communication out of the picture except for the smallest of engagements, strategic and tactical planning became impossible. 

And Luthien burned. 

… No, it’s been burning, but it had been a smouldering flame that ate away at Luthien for months. The lack of supplies from industrial worlds, the falling level of trade, and the inability to replace lost mechwarriors…

All of it had led up to this. 

“YOU CAME AT US FIRST!” he roared wrathfully with all of the power his body could produce. “YOU FOUGHT AGAINST US FIRST!” 

How?! 

Why?!

Hohiro watched with bloodshot eyes as he felt something warm dribbling down from his lips. 

And then he closed his eyes and let it out slowly. 

If they were not going to come to the palace to end him … then he would go to them.

He whirled around to face his servants and samurais. “If Luthien is to fall today, then I shall fall with it! The Coordinator is the Draconis Combine, and the Draconis Combine is the Coordinator!” He gritted his teeth. “Ready my mech!” he ordered. 

He was a samurai. He was his people’s shogun! 

He would die in his mech, not pathetically while on the run!

-VB-

Alan Marris

I sniffed. 

My clones sniffed. 

We smelled bullshit in the air. 

Maybe it was the battlemechs charging out of the palace, but it was still bullshit. The utter stupidity of the ruler charging out of a palace as if this was some period drama. 

We didn’t hit the palace because a) it was funnier to make fun of him, b) actually killing the Coordinator was not the point of this raid, and c) we wanted to make the Combine fear us, not utterly ruin it! 

We wanted to make the drag out the Draconis Combine’s death! 

We wanted to savor it! 

And point it out to them that all of it happened because they nuked us in the face! 

My people on the ground - not the clones but the actual soldiers we trained - didn’t know that. 

So we hastily sent out an order. 

“A company of mechs are leaving the Unity Palace. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. A special force will be assembled, and only they will fight them. I repeat, do not engage,” we spoke through the “admiral” in charge of the excursion fleet.

From each of the companies and regiments, our clones piloted their battlemechs out to form a new unit, and they moved to intercept the battlemech company, which included a very shiny battlemech that had to be piloted by the Coordinator himself. 

Ugh.

We would have to chalk this up as another thing that we started to hate about the Combine. 

They were utterly irrational. 

There was a method to their irrationality, but it was one that we could not accept. 

Just because one man decided to change how the entire nation was run, they had to accept everyone would starve? 

We needed to break it, but if slow and steady wasn’t on the table because of the Combine’s stupid bushido and arrogance, then fast and dirty would have to do.

The shieldbearer mechs were assembled. They closed in on the target. 

And then they were ready.

“Execute.”

-VB-

Hohiro

He didn’t see it coming. 

His samurais paid for his incompetence. 

When a loud roar broke out and drowned out all other sound yet nothing happened in front of him, he whirled around to see what was going on. When he turned his Atlas around to fight, he found himself frozen when he saw one of the damnable Coreward warships flying just barely out of his weapons’ reach.

And then his samurais - his brave samurais following a doomed ruler - died as they received laser baptism. 

“NOOOO!!!” he roared with fury as he looked on from within the confines of his Atlas’s cockpit. 

This was an ignoble death. This was not how samurai were supposed to fall upon the battlefield! 

They would deny him even this?! 

Then the laser beams from the impossible warship ended and … it flew off. 

Leaving him alone. 

Clank.

He looked back down, not realizing that he had been staring up at the quickly disappearing warship in naked shock.

Hohiro whirled his Atlas around and found himself staring at a dozen medium mechs with those arm mounted “energy shields” that he had been receiving reports about. 

“Come at me, you bastards!” he roared as he opened fire with all of his weapons. AC/20’s, large lasers, and even SRM-4’s all fired. 

They impacted the energy shield … and did nothing. 

They boxed him in.

And he felt a chill run up his spine. 

“No… You can’t be serious,” he muttered as he charged forward and smashed his Atlas’s fist into one of the energy shields. That pushed it back, but the other mechs were quick to surround him.

To box him in.

“No! You will take me alive!” he roared as he punched and punched and punched… but they boxed him in. His mech’s arms went up and could not come back down. His legs could not generate enough thrust to move in any direction. They pushed up against his mech’s frame.

… This was it. 

He slumped into his seat after a minute of fruitless effort.

He stayed there as another dropship came down to secure him.

Hohiro… could not accept this.

He looked down at his ceremonial wakizashi. 

He drew the golden string embossed handle out and watched the gleaming steel scrape out of the scabbard. 

This was it.

“So this is how the Combine falls. Not to our rivals… but to an upstart,” he muttered quietly as he grabbed the handle and pointed the tip of the blade towards his own stomach. “The dishonor I’ve brought to my family…” he muttered as tears fell from his eyes. 

And -!